


Deathbed Kiss

by Sol_Invictus



Series: The red fox and the golden dove [2]
Category: The Borgias
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sol_Invictus/pseuds/Sol_Invictus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucrezia Borgia is dying and she wants her last confession to be heard by...Ascanio Sforza.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deathbed Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank to [ Ellen ](http://thereisnosaintellen.tumblr.com/), who is a wonderful beta ! Go leave her a message if you need a beta !

Lucrezia Borgia was now so weak she couldn’t leave her bed anymore. One doctor had followed another without any sign of recovery. According to the Pope’s doctor, she probably won’t survive the night. She needed the last sacraments.

○

Ascanio Sforza walked quickly past Cesare’s men guarding the hall of Lady Cattaneo’s villa. A messenger had told the cardinal that Lady Lucrezia had asked him to perform the last sacraments. This somewhat odd request surprised him; he was barely an acquaintance to the young woman. Perhaps she didn’t want her last confession to be heard by her father but still wanted to see a familiar face -although Ascanio hardly considered himself as one.

“You’re the only person she accepts to see,” said Rodrigo Borgia when the cardinal entered the room where all the family was already mourning.

The Sforza cardinal only nodded and then headed to the room of the young woman.

“…cardinal Sforza?” he heard after knocking gently.

He opened the door. Ascanio almost stepped back at the shocking and unexpected sight before him. The shining beauty he used to admire was now a pale, frail, feverish form lying on a bed.

“Lady Lucrezia.”

She smiled weakly as the cardinal took a seat next to her bed.

“I must say I am surprised by your request.”

The young woman closed her eyes for a few seconds, as if she was falling asleep. She sat up with some difficulties before answering with a breathy whisper:

“And yet you came.”

“Of course.”

Lucrezia closed her eyes again for a moment.

“We will start whenever you are ready,” Ascanio said softly.

She didn’t answer back immediately. The cardinal’s eyes started wandering her body. Her chest rising in time with her laborious breath mesmerized him so much he almost missed her answer.

“Let’s begin.”

○

Ascanio Sforza sat again near Lucrezia when the last servant closed the door.

“Thank you.” she said with a faint voice.

The man smiled softly and stood up.

“You surely must want to be with your family,” said he before bowing and kissing her hand.

Lucrezia’s frail hand gripped weakly his wrist.

“Stay…please.”

The cardinal’s face showed his surprise. He sat down, the young lady’s hand still around his wrist. He absent-mindedly noted her velvety skin.

“I am about to die, your Eminence. Is there…any burden you would like to bury with my coffin?” the young Borgia laboriously asked him.

That was probably the most surprising thing a Borgia had ever asked him (and it meant a lot when you were the Vice-Chancellor of Rodrigo Borgia). But was she sincere? Did she mean it or was it a wicked plot from her father or/and her brother? The cardinal couldn’t tell.

His face must have given him away because a bitter smile blossomed on Lucrezia’s pale face.

“Do you fear a Borgia cabal against you, cardinal?”

Ascanio bit his lips.

_I will regret it_ , he thought, the feeling already creeping in his guts.

He took a big breath.

“You surely remember the plot of my cousin, Lady Catherina when his Holiness was poisoned. She expected me to become pope.”

“But…you warned us. You betrayed her,” he could see perplexity in her hypnotizing eyes.

“When the news of his Holiness’ survival started to spread in Rome, I was asked to…put an end to it.” Ascanio licked his lips, his throat suddenly dry. “There was a knife hidden in your father’s chambers and…I was going to do it. I was going to murder your father and let your family be killed. And then…your brother arrived.”

Lucrezia seemed stunned for five long seconds before she spoke.

“But…why did you tell Cesare?”

The cardinal could hear his heart beating like it was going to explode.

“Because…Because I thought of you.”

Ascanio fell silent as Lucrezia closed her eyes. He feared she might throw him out but no, she didn’t scream or insult him. She just slipped herself down into her sheets, her eyes still closed.

“I fear I have a last thing to confess to you, your Eminence…”

“What is it?”

“Kiss me.”

The silence fell once more. The cardinal must have misunderstood.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kiss me,” she repeated with a breathy whisper.

_She is dying,_ he thought, _nobody will know._

Ascanio leaned into the face he had admired so many times from afar. He briefly wondered if he would get contaminated. Then his lips touched Lucrezia’s soft ones and he didn’t care anymore.

“Thank you,” she whispered when he reluctantly broke the kiss.

“Goodbye, Lady Lucrezia,” he whispered back.

When he left her room, Ascanio felt strangely at peace.

○

The pope’s doctor revealed himself to be a perfectly incompetent idiot. Lucrezia Borgia survived the night and got better within the month. Ascanio cursed himself for having given into his attraction for the young woman. He was expecting himself to die in the most horrible and painful way possible.

And yet nothing happened. Rodrigo thanked him for having accepted his daughter’s request as did Cesare. But no assassin hidden behind his curtains, no poisoned wine, no sword stabbing his heart. Nothing. The cardinal finally admitted that Lucrezia didn’t tell anyone.

○

“You requested a meeting, Lady Lucrezia?”

The young woman turned around to look at Ascanio with a light smile.

“Indeed, cardinal,” her mischievous tone made him shiver. “I would like to confess.”

His throat suddenly dry, the cardinal answered:

“Confess? To me?”

“Who else?”

“Well, there is your father.”

She raised her eyebrows in an almost annoyed manner and Cardinal Sforza had to bite back a smile.

“And…what sins would you like to confess, my lady?”

Lucrezia walked slowly toward him.

“I fear I may desire a Prince of the Church… Can you forgive me for this sin, cardinal Sofrza?” her sweet lips brushed Ascanio’s and this time the cardinal smiled.

“I am fairly sure that a kiss could encourage me to show clemency.”

The young woman smiled brightly and kissed him.


End file.
